A Higher Tech and a Lower Tech Rowing Session

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An over-the-shoulder view of someone (not me) using higher tech with RowPro to race. He is not actually racing online though. He is using RowPro and racing offline against either computer-generated pace boats or rowfiles supplied by other rowers. That youtube video can be found at THIS LINK. If you watch the video, play it all the way to the end so you can appreciate the guy’s effort when you hear how hard he is breathing after the finish. That is quite normal, if a person gives maximum effort to do a 2K.

Today’s rowing consisted of two pieces.  The first was the higher tech session, because it was done online.  Doing a rowing session online is actually easy, but I consider it “higher tech,” because it not only involved the Concept 2 rowing machine and its own computer which is called the PM, but also it involves another computer which runs the RowPro software.  That computer running RowPro connects to both the PM and to the internet.  Via the internet, a connection is made to the Digital Rowing/Oarbits server in Houston.  And other people who are rowing with RowPro, all over the world, can also connect to that same server in Houston at the same time as you, so you can row with them via the internet.

The first session was 30 minutes, with one other person who was located in England.  It was not a race and we rowed within a few meters of each other’s boats, from start to finish.

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I forgot to take a screen shot of the finish of today’s 30 minute online rowing session, but you can see the results in the yellow area of the Oarbits results screenshot.
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What I did different than usual in today’s online 30 minute session was to row at a very low rating. It felt good to be rowing at a very sedate pace. It was enough effort, even at the slow pace, to slowly but surely elevate HR.

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The screenshot below shows some people who are all racing each other using higher tech of RowPro while their machines are all connected to one server.  You can see that video at THIS LINK. That video is less than two minutes (it was a very short race) and everyone in the room who was not rowing applauds, when the race is finished.

So… it is possible for people to race each other using RowPro while they are all in the same room, but it can also be done with each rower and his/her machine in different rooms anywhere in the world.

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The second session today was the Lower Tech of the two, because it only involved using the rowing machine and its PM.  For the second session, the PM was set for a custom 3-interval session which consisted of 500 meters with 30 seconds rest, 1,000 meters with 30 seconds rest and 500 meters as the last interval.  The second session was done for this month’s challenge on the C2CTC website.  The goal was to row the first 500m interval at a rating of 22, the second 1K interval at 26 and the last 500m interval at 30.

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This is somebody (not me) who is rowing the “lower tech” way, using only the Concept 2 rowing machine and its PM.
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A photo of the PM screen showing the results of my C2CTC challenge attempt today. I focused exclusively on rating (strokes per minute) because there was a penalty for doing even 1 SPM more or less than the specified rating for each interval. As a result, the ratings were perfect and the speed was kinda slow.

There was also a strength training session today.  If you want to see the results, they are going to be posted, along with the strength-training plan, in the page of this blog that can be found via the tab named “Current Plan”.

Happy higher or lower tech rowing to you.

Happy Mothers Day 2017

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The above photo was found on a website/blog called Fit and Fabulous After Forty and was chosen for today because today is Mother’s Day! and its an appropriate-for-the-day picture of a mother and a child rowing side by side on Concept 2 rowing machines.

The photo came up when I searched images for the terms mother rowing and is located in an article where the author writes about her experience of participating in a marathon row. It can be found at THIS LINK.

Today’s rowing session for me was 30 minutes online in a group of 7 people including myself.

One of the other rowers asked if anyone planned to row exactly 7,000 meters in 30 minutes and I volunteered to do that pace, which was 2:08.5/500m.

I maintained an average pace of 2:08.5 for the first 28 minutes, but he rowed a bit faster.  So when the time counted down to 2 minutes remaining, I sprinted a bit.

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Happy rowing, however short or long you stay on the machine.